Development and Performance Evaluation of a Solar Powered Lawn Mower.

The continuous increase in the cost of fuel and the effect of emission of gases from burned fuel into the atmosphere when operating engine powered lawn mower has necessitated the use of the abundant solar energy from the sun as a power source of a lawn mower. A solar powered lawn mower was designed, fabricated and assembled on the basis of the general principle of mowing. The components of the lawn mower are; direct current (DC) motor, rechargeable battery, solar panel, galvanized steel blade of various thicknesses and shapes, and a speed controller. The required torque needed to drive the galvanized steel blade was achieved through the DC motor. The speed of the DC motor was controlled by the speed controller with the resistance in the circuit and allowed the motor to drive the blade at varied speeds. The battery recharged through the solar charging circuit, which comprises of a solar panel and charge controller. Performance evaluation was conducted on the developed mower with various thicknesses (1 mm, 1.5 mm and 2 mm) and shapes of the cutting blade (two, three and four blades). It was found that the cutting efficiency of the mower ranges from 70.50% - 84.10%, also the cutting capacity ranges from 0.05 ha h^-1 - 0.27 ha h^-1, the uncut area was also found to range from 15.90% - 29.50%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]